AACN News Watch Weekly Edition

Published June 12, 2019

Weekly Digest

American Nurse Today offers free access to some of its most popular content, including an article originally published in January 2019 titled Near-Peer Mentoring for Nursing Research Education. In this piece, a team of nurse clinicians from Sentara Norfolk General Hospital, a Magnet facility, present an overview of a mentoring program that pairs BSN and DNP students with similar interests on an evidence-based practice project. This collaborative learning approach helps to instill confidence in novice researchers, prepare more nurses for future leadership, and expand the reach of established experts.

In the June 10, 2019 issue of Inside Higher Ed, editor Scott Jaschik answers the question: Is College Worth It? Yes. New research by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York indicates that there is a clear economic edge for those who earn bachelor's degrees over those with a high school diploma. This research shows that the rate of return on the investment of paying for college is high enough to make the decision to go to college a wise one for most students.

AACN Celebrates 50 Years - A Look Back at 2014

AACN names Dr. Deborah E. Trautman as its new Chief Executive Officer, effective June 16, 2014. Previously, Dr. Trautman had served as Executive Director of the Center for Health Policy and Healthcare Transformation at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, MD. Appointed by the Board of Directors, Dr. Trautman replaced Dr. Geraldine "Polly" Bednash, who served as AACN's CEO for 28 years.

The Social Pulse

To reduce her patients' risk of infection from sickle cell disease, one nurse created a prototype that could help healthcare providers better assess for redness or infection in real time. Learn more about what inspired her transformative invention and how she believes it will provide patients with a higher standard of care.

Florida is in dire need of more nurses and is among the top states in the nation experiencing a shortage. To address this challenge, a researcher from the Florida Atlantic University Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing and a collaborator developed and tested an innovative new curricular approach to educate undergraduate nursing students in geriatric care. Spread the news on social media and learn more about this remarkable development here.

Washington Weekly

Inside this edition of Washington Weekly: Last chance to pledge your support for opioid education; Act now—Urge your Senators and Representative to support Title VIII Reauthorization; AACN attends NAM's Future of Nursing town hall; and join the AACN's Grassroots Network to stay informed this summer.

New Partnerships & Grant-funded Initiatives

In an effort to ease the shortage of nurses in West Texas, the Gayle Greve Hunt School of Nursing at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and El Paso Community College (EPCC) have announced a concurrent enrollment agreement that offers students an efficient way to pursue a nursing education. The collaboration ties together early-college coursework in high school, the associate degree in nursing program at EPCC, and the BSN program at Texas Tech. Read more >>

The University of Houston College of Nursing has received a $3.5 million grant from HCA Houston Healthcare to support programs at their soon-to-open facility in Katy and its current location in Sugar Land. The majority of the grant—about $2 million—will go toward increasing the number of adjunct or full-time faculty members at HCA-affiliated facilities. Read more >>

Drs. Robert Lucero and Ragnhildur Bjarnadottir from the University of Florida College of Nursing have been awarded a five-year, $2.57 million grant from the National Institute on Aging at the National Institutes of Health. Their project will look at registered nurses' observation notes and examine those patients, specifically older patients, who are at a higher risk of hospital-induced falls and delirium. They hope to construct a method to process the notes more efficiently and make them more usable by hospitals and researchers. Read more >>